PETALING JAYA: PPBM candidates have filed seven election petitions over the state and parliamentary seats they had lost in the May 9 general election.

In a statement, PPBM legal bureau secretary Mior Nor Haidir Suhaimi said in all the petitions, the candidates were asking for by-elections to be held.

He said the four parliamentary seats involved are Tasek Gelugor in Penang, Jempol in Negeri Sembilan, and Tapah and Bagan Serai in Perak

The state assembly seats meanwhile are Lubok Merbau and Changkat Jong in Perak and Kahang in Johor.

PPBM is part of the Pakatan Harapan coalition which won federal power last month and formed the state governments in Penang, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka and Johor while also retaining Selangor and Penang.

In filing their petitions, the PPBM candidates said there had been several breaches in fundamental rules in the conduct of fair polls. They also said election offences had been committed by their challengers, and that the Election Commission (EC) had failed to ensure a clean voting process.

On May 29, the EC gazetted the election results and gave aggrieved parties 21 days to file petitions.

The deadline to file the legal challenge is June 18, but FMT understands that lawyers filed the petitions earlier this week due to the Hari Raya holidays.

It is unclear how many petitions were filed by DAP, PKR, Amanah, Barisan Nasional (BN), and other political parties such as Warisan in Sabah, and those in Sarawak.

Yesterday, DAP’s Liew Chin Tong filed a petition at the court in Johor Baru to challenge the results for the Ayer Hitam parliamentary seat.

Liew lost by a narrow 303-vote margin, which allowed Wee Ka Siong to retain the parliamentary seat for BN with 17,076 votes.

PAS candidate Mardi Marwan meanwhile received 4,975 votes.

On June 5, DAP’s M Manogaran, who lost the Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat to BN’s C Sivarraajh, filed a petition to nullify the results on grounds of massive vote buying.

He sought a declaration from the election court that Sivarraajh was not the rightful winner as declared by the returning officer on May 9.

However, Manogaran did not explicitly ask for a by-election to be held should the petition be allowed.

In the hotly contested election, Sivarraajh won by a 597-vote majority in a five-cornered battle.

Sivarraajh polled 10,307 votes, Manogaran 9,710, Wan Mahadhir Wan Mahmud of PAS 3,587, Mohd Tahir Kassim of Berjasa 81 and Suresh Kumar of Parti Sosialis Malalysia 680.

Liew files petition against Ayer Hitam election result

DAP candidate wants Cameron Highlands polls result nullified